Believe Different, Live Different

“I’m Working On It.”

I often use the phrase, “I’m working on it” when referring to my heart. I am learning that in reality I use this phrase as a shield to guard against actually having to confront my messy heart.

I used this phrase recently, and afterward I had to ask myself the question, “am I really working on it?” I can play this card as a safeguard – as if saying, “I’m working on it” lets me off the hook for responding out of my fears. By hiding behind “working on it,” I give my fears permission to take root in me.

The reality is that our mess is really hard to work on. It takes courage to confront our own hearts. My heart resembles a crater field after the dust has settled from battle. It displays the wounds of life. I have craters with other people’s names on them. I also have holes that echo the natural consequences of my unwise decisions. I get overwhelmed when staring at all the craters in my heart. I have also experienced seasons of ignoring my wounds and walking away to find comfort elsewhere.

The false advertising of life is that pursuing comfort elsewhere does not add wounds to the already broken heart.

As the wounds of my heart run deep, they manifest in different masked ways. If feels scary to confront them. Saying it out loud makes them more real.

The foundation of my crater field happened in high school when the affair of my father came out. The news shattered my world and brought on a deep level of pain I never knew could be reached. This grief sowed seeds of real fear in the core of my heart. These seeds manifest themselves in ways I am aware of as well as in ways I am still learning to identify.

I struggle with abandonment in paralyzing and infuriating ways. I guard my heart so tight that pain can’t find a way in. This fear paralyzes me from taking risks to experience real life and real intimacy.

I also fear being replaced all the time. I fear intimacy as it forces me into places that require the risk of being vulnerable and my heart exposed. I fear being a “meantime” friend as if it were only a matter of time before my friends find someone better than me. I am not using “better” in a prideful way, but voicing my deep insecurity that keeps my heart on lock down. I hate the nagging feeling of always holding my breath in waiting. I even imagine, and play out in my head, being left by the other person as a way to prepare myself for pain. By actively staying in this place of fear, I voluntarily place the shackles on my life of being enslaved to those fears.

I hate this long standing pattern of life for me. God has already done a ton of healing in me. I can honestly say that I am more whole than I used to be. It is a conscious effort to choose to trust people. I am trying to get used to sitting in a place of discomfort and lack of control. That place is terrifying for me.

There’s still the question of what if someone did decide to leave? This is a real possibility. I still grieve the loss of some really close friendships. It is even more of a possibility as our culture moves further away from commitment.

God is my redeemer. He promises that he “began a good work in me and carries it on to completion.” I have now edited my comfort phrase from “I’m working on it” to “He’s working on me.” I cannot heal my own heart. God is gentle as he waits for me to surrender my white flag to him. God has been redirecting my life out of the desert. I have spent too many weeks/months/years living life there.

Instead of adding bricks to the Great Wall of me, I desire to begin surrendering myself to him. Hillsong has a great song with lyrics that state,“rid me of myself, I belong to you…lead me to the cross.” This is my hard prayer to pray.

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I love the phrase “He’s working on me.” If I’m working on me, then my focus is me (narcissism), but when I allow God to work on me, it allows me to focus on serving and helping others, which actually helps heal my heart, and in a counter-intuitive way, i am working on me. Thanks for great words Tracee, keep them coming.

[…] I am still in a place of wrestling through doubt that the word love applies to me. I still experience pain where that message seems true. I have known glimpses of love. I say glimpses because I hold loosely to those moments. Fear still has its grip on me. Everyday I pray for perfect love to drive out all my fear. One day I will know in my heart, and not just my head, that I am worth love. Until then, “he is working on me.” […]

Tracee, I so get you. I could’ve written this post. I also struggle with the “meantime” feeling. And I have my whole life. I have always felt like I was “on the outside, looking in.” Like I’m on my own and have to take care of myself because no one else should have to worry about me. (I also tend to live this belief out and perpetuate it out of fear, pain, and resignation.) Even in my family-of-origin, I feel like an orphan because of how little we all care to see each other. And I have a hard time with friendships because I don’t like to be a burden to others, making them feel like they have to care about me.

In fact, this past year I made a resolution. I realized that I was getting really discouraged by this pervasive sense of loneliness. I kept trying to make deeper friendships. And they never got as deep and meaningful as I wanted them to. And I was thinking about how I have always been a lonely person, out on the outskirts all by myself. And it dawned on me that if I was always a lonely person, I might always be a lonely person. It just may be my “cross to bear.” And I had a choice to either be upset about it and fight it, or to “get comfortable” with it. To sit way back deep into it and to ask God to help me become the best, most God-glorifying, lonely person I could be.

And so I resigned myself to it, to being on the outside of everything. And I decided to find ways to glorify God in the loneliness and to let it push me to notice other people’s pain and needs. I can’t always fix or change my situation, but maybe I could be a transient blessing to others, a butterfly that floats into their lives and gives them a little joy and encouragement, even if it means I fly alone. Just part of my journey, I guess.

It still hurts. I still wish that I had the encouragement and support for myself, too. Yes, I have a husband and kids, but that still doesn’t fix the wounds given by a broken home and an absent father. And it doesn’t take the place of deep female friendships. But I am blessed with one true, deep friend. And I am learning to let God be my encourager, to be the big shoulders that I can lean on, and to be “enough.” I realized that contentment has to start now or it doesn’t start at all.

Anyway, just sharing my story because I totally relate to the “meantime” feeling and to the idea of blocking love in your newer post. I relate to EVERYTHING you say. And you say it so well. (And of course, I wish that you didn’t know this kind of pain, too. It’s a long, difficult road to walk when coming out of a shattered home life. It just rocks your world to the core.)

Always appreciate and love your thoughts. Lonliness stings and just echos in the heart’s hollow places. I too feel lonely a lot. That is hard. I go back and forth between thinking lonliness is a season and that lonliness will always be an ache in there for me. One of my cloest friends always says, “Loneliness is God’s cry for initmacy.” i love that. It is hard.I am a huge people person, which also makes loneliness sting more. However, I also know I need to make time for my relationship with him. I am currently in the process of learning how to sit in what feels like the outsider place on relationships and life. It feels heavy and just hard. It is a process. I have no idea what the result of this place will be. Just sitting in it.

Hoping you feel seen today. Hoping you find intimacy in the midst of your loneliness.

You are so right on when you say that you are learning to sit in the outsider position. If there is one thing I am learning it’s that sometimes God calls us to learn to live with the things we don’t like and to find Him in it instead of focusing on trying to fight our way out. If we can find Him there, in the midst of the things we don’t like, then we have learned to abide in Him anywhere. But it is hard and does hurt. But it’s a part of the process of humbling ourselves under God’s mighty hand. And it’s been an interesting journey. I’ll be saying a prayer for you as you struggle with this too. :)